Richard III

For all near and in available distance to York, the project “A Voice For Richard” has a special fundraising event in the Friargate Theatre on Saturday, 27th April 2019.

Time: 10:00 – 16:30 (9:30 a.m. registration)

We already informed you about this fascinating endeavor to reconstrue King Richard III’s voice in our last article: To Hear the Dead King Speak

But with the fascinating participants to the program for this event, we wanted to go into more detail and let you know about the contributors of this event and project:

Philippa Langley, one of the main initiators of the search for King Richard III in Leicester and well known on our website, will give an overview of “Playing Richard – How Richard III has been played on stage and on screen“.

Yvonne Morley-Chrisholm, Voice & Text coach and specialising in vocal profiling, as well as initiator of the “A Voice for Richard” project, together with Tim Charrington, Accent and Dialect specialist, will explain “Pronunciation and personality” and give an introduction into building King Richard III vocal profile.

Hearing someone speak who no longer is alive, normally is a hard thing to achieve and necessitates special esoteric and transcendental abilities of a medium.

But with King Richard III, this could be made possible for everyone of us and we won’t even need special abilities to connect with the otherworld. No, nothing like that.

A group of researchers and specialists might make it possible for us to hear an authentic reconstruction of King Richard III’s voice.

The research takes into account what words the dead king used in his writing, but also from the reconstruction of his skeleton and facial reconstruction, how his larynx would have built his sounds and his facial muscles have formed the vowels and consonants. This way, the most likely reconstruction of the king’s voice will be rebuilt and made audible.

The finding of the king’s bones now might help to not only re-create his history, but also be able to give him back his own voice. Something so many think Shakespeare took away from King Richard III by reducing him to an unrecognizable, though most famous villain.

But what abilities are necessary, to reconstrue something that is already gone and thought forever lost?

The choice of words – Through King Richard III own writing and handwritten comments and annotations in his own library of books

The dialect and historic pronunciation – through linguistic research into the regionalism and change of language usage over time

The articulation – by reconstruing his throat, cheeks, lips and mouth to re-create his linguistic organs. But also his lungs and body size play a role in the acoustics and resonance of a human body.

Kudos to this project. It is an ambitious endeavor, as so many techniques and expertises are necessary, to create already believed lost sound.

Having already been closely following the reconstruction of a dead man’s voice before, I am really looking forward to the execution of this project “A Voice for Richard”.

(I don’t know if many of you remember the earlier endeavor I refer to: The re-creation of the voice of one of the most famous singers in the 18th century, Farinelli, who even in old age, had a significant influence on Mozart and his music. The voice was re-created by overlaying the voices of a tenor/countertenor and an alto-singer, who were modulated in a very specific way to create a singular hearing experience. The results can be heard in the film about this singer “Farinelli” (1994).)

Let King Richard III speak for himself!

To find out more about this project and to potentially support it, here come more details for you:

Happy Birthday, Richard Armitage!

Servetus has a thoughtful and wonderfully insightful blog for the birthday celebrations here.

The other event that is returning today for the 533rd time is the Battle of Bosworth, where King Richard III died and which is the reason for Richard Armitage’s first name.

After the death of King Richard III, history and myth was not kind to the king.

That especially is a fact that grips me, as right now I have quite some of my acquaintances who – because of illness or age – are penning down their legacy and making notes how they want to be remembered after their deaths. That is not only a look and planning into an uncertain future, anticipating what might happen, but also demands a review of the life they lead, what they did, and from all their planning and working, to pin the fluidity of life down to what really worked out.

King Richard III never had a chance to do such a planning and at least we do not know about the review he would give his own life. Others determined, what we remember of the king and his deeds.

A main crime always pinned on the king, was the murder of his two young nephews, the known ‘Princes in the Tower’.

The main researcher for finding King Richard III, Dr. John Ashdown-Hill, before his own death finished a research into this topic, which just recently was published posthumously and I got a chance to read already.

I mention this book here, because its unique research does not only go into the facts, as much as we know about them, but also shows the development of ‘opinion’ and ‘myth’ around the ‘event’, if it indeed was one. The rich detail and meticulous research we are used to in the work of Dr. Ashdown-Hill, fascinates with giving a clear structure to all the rumours and suspicions, circling around King Richard III and also follows their historical progression. That in itself is a recommendable feat, if Dr. Ashdown-Hill was not already remembered in our ‘KRA-Hall of Fame’ as the historical researcher who made the finding of King Richard III possible.

I have recognised that for the U.S. the publishing date is set as November 1st, 2018. In the U.K. and other regions, the book is already available. It also will come out as e-book, so please check in your region. (Embedded links here are only given for your convenience.)

Though being quiet for so long on this website, the news I today found, just needs to be posted here, on the website he so greatly supported.

Dr. John Ashdown-Hill

the historian behind the finding of King Richard III in Leicester, died on 18 May 2018. (BBC News here.)

It was his persistence and meticulous research of the times after King Richard III was buried in Leicester, that convinced him that the king’s remains still could be found, though many historians for centuries believed otherwise.

It is due to his research, which he maintained against severe opposition and accusations, that lead to the sensational discovery in Leicester.
It was this persistence and conviction and his honour and work-ethics, that fascinated me about the man and historian Dr. Ashdown-Hill, whom I never personally met, but had the honour to talk to on the phone and do an interview with.

So it is very sad news for me and for the KingRichardArmitage website, who he kindly supported with interviews and a multitude of valuable information. Just see the various posts and articles we have here on this website: Dr. John Ashdown-Hill – News & Interviews

Part relevant for King Richard III, transcribed from the video accompanying the interview article:

What role is on your acting bucket list?

Yeah, there is a role on my bucket list. It has been there for a long time, actually. I’d like to play Richard III in some context, whether that’s the Shakespearean version or another version. I was born on the day that he died and I was named after him, so I feel like I have to […] get into his head, or something.

♛ Happy Birthday Richard Armitage ♛

Happy Birthday, Mr. Armitage !!!
Success, fulfillment and happiness and the most essential, health, on your life’s journey.
And always enough chocolate to make your day!

♛ KRA-Quiz 2015 ♛

With a rush and a hectic a new year went away like a slight brush of wind and once again it is time to find our champions.

Though I was a bit disappointed by the rather localised event for King Richard III in Leicester, which in my opinion could have been a country wide, if not even a world-wide event,
the KRA-website does not discriminate or exclude from our quiz!
Wherever you are, from wherever you join us, take part and try your knowledge

about King Richard III

and Richard Armitage.

KRA once again searches for the King Richard III-Champions.

This year, we search two champions.
In the previous quizzes it became apparent that some have strengthes on one or the other side, meaning Richard III or Richard Armitage.
So this year, we search for two separate champions:

The King Richard III – Champion 2015 and

the Richard Armitage – Champion 2015.

Winning prices are:

For the winner in the RIII-part (Page 1 of the quiz):

For the winner in the RA-part (Page 2 of the quiz):

All participants till 30 September 2015 (in all time zones around the world) will take part in the drawing.

All questiones need to be answered, even if you know your strength is only on one page of the quiz. So two chances to win in one quiz!

The winners will be announced here on King Richard III’s birthday, the 2 October 2015.

So, no further comment about what they currently make out of this new petition, but rather, what this new petition by the initiators of ‘Looking for Richard‘ really is about:
(I must admit, from the media reports about it, I really had difficulties making it out.)

That the team which initiated and persisted in the search for King Richard III cares about King Richard III, can be taken without doubt. That they want to assure his dignity and honourable treatment, is the main factor defining each step of their search, but also is the essence behind this new petition:

Contrary to the original agreement about the treatment of the remains of King Richard III, his bones have not been sent to rest in a church, awaiting his burial ceremonies.
The reasons of the University of Leicester for this are manifold, among those are, preserving (correct temperature, water level, etc.), security (against possible fanatics), transportation to the location, hindering of further research access, …

So King Richard III at the moment is stored in a scientific vault, like a research specimen, which for the University of Leicester he certainly is.

But besides having been King of England once, King Richard III also is a human being, for which certain treatment standards should be in place to ascertain his human dignity.
One of these standards, the ‘Looking for Richard’ team tries to insist upon with this new petition:

Giving King Richard a holy and not a scientific environment for being placed in his coffin.

From what the media makes out of this request and petition, you would think, the ‘Looking for Richard’ team wants to overthrow all the planning and work from either Leicester Cathedral and the University of Leicester for the burial ceremonies. Some even make me believe, a new war between religions is imminent.

Far from it !

The supporters of this petition come from all religious and none-religious backgrounds worldwide and have the one thing in common:

They are concerned about the scientific treatment of a human being, which sets a very utilitarian precedent of how to treat human remains where the scientific interest dominates and subjugates every other consideration.

This coffining in a holy place would give the found bones a ‘human dignity’ back and would assure that King Richard III is not only seen as a scientific curiosity, but also as a very religious man and human being.
It also would uphold consent for a treatment of human remains, not only of kings, but human beings in general, which researchers seem so easily to forget that King Richard III after all still is.

In this regard, think about how you would like to be treated and for once see King Richard III not as a spectacular historical oddity, but as a human being, and take action regarding this new petition as you see fit:

The petition will close at midnight (GMT) on Tuesday 24 February 2015. The results will be handed over to the re-interment board in Leicester.
More information and details about the ‘Looking for Richard’ team and new petition on the Looking for Richard website.

From today on there are only 100 days left till the reburial of King Richard III in Leicester Cathedral.
If you want to join the cermony, Leicester Cathedral starts a ballot procedure, to select participants for the ceremony. The procedure of ‘ballot’ was selected to find a fair way to chose among the many interested in the ceremony worldwide.

The ballot procedure starts at 8 a.m. [GMT] and is open till 31st December 2014 (12 a.m./noon).
The online access can be reached via this form provided by Leicester Cathedral on their website:

Richard Armitage mentions King Richard III and a new Channel 4 documentary about the king, coming out next year, in the new interview:

Sunday Times interview with Richard Armitage by Ed Potton (28.11.2014)
(Quote from the RichardArmitageUS-FacebookPage.)

[…] He’s [Richard Armitage] always been drawn to conflicted roles: Oakenshield, Proctor, Lucas North, his double (triple?) agent in Spooks. “I know,” he smiles. “I need to do some comedy, don’t I?” He doesn’t mean it, though: he knows he’s best at playing men who combine light and shade. That may go back again to Richard III, with whom he inherited an obsession from his father. Armitage was set to be called Russell until he was born on the anniversary of Richard’s death at the Battle of Bosworth. His dad took that as a sign: he was instead named Richard.

When the King’s remains were recently discovered under a car park in Leicester, down the road from where Armitage grew up, he was thrilled. He hopes to be involved in a documentary about it for Channel 4 next year. How about playing him? He’s not hopeful: “He was a young man when he died.” Don’t believe that one, either: Armitage could make a splendid crookback. Imagine the mixtape for that one. […]